Currently, the main method of obtaining smooth surfaces in industry is chemical-mechanical or "wet" polishing. However, this has two disadvantages: Most methods leave a residual pattern at the scale of about 1 nm, as well ...

An international team of researchers has predicted the existence of several previously unknown types of quantum particles in materials. The particles—which belong to the class of particles known as fermions—can be distinguished ...

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are macroscopic systems that have quantum behaviour, and are useful for exploring fundamental physics. Now researchers at the Gakushuin University and the University of Electro-Communications ...

Life in the nano lane is fast and just got faster in terms of knowledge of fundamental mechanisms working at the nanoscale—where processes are driven by a dance of particles such as atoms and ions one-billionth of a meter ...

The geometry and topology of electronic states in solids plays a central role in a wide range of modern condensed-matter systems including graphene or topological insulators. However, experimentally accessing this information ...

The idea of a pump is at least as old as the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Archimedes. More than 2000 years ago, Archimedes allegedly invented a corkscrew pump that could lift water up an incline with the turn of ...

In the early 1900s, Ernest Rutherford shot alpha particles onto gold foils and concluded from their scattering properties that atoms contain their mass in a very small nucleus. A hundred years later, modern scientists took ...

Liquid water is a very good heat storage medium – anyone with a Thermos bottle knows that. However, as soon as water boils or freezes, its storage capacity drops precipitously. Physicists at the University of Bonn have ...

Condensation

Condensation is the change of the physical state of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. When the transition happens from the gaseous phase into the solid phase directly, the change is called deposition.

Condensation is initiated by the formation of atomic/molecular clusters of that species within its gaseous volume—like rain drop or snow-flake formation within clouds—or at the contact between such gaseous phase and a (solvent) liquid or solid surface.

A few distinct reversibility scenarios emerge here with respect to the nature of the surface.

Condensation commonly occurs when a vapour is cooled and/or compressed to its saturation limit when the molecular density in the gas phase reaches its maximal threshold. Vapour cooling and compressing equipment that collects condensed liquids is called "condenser".

Psychrometry measures the rates of condensation from and evaporation into the air moisture at various atmospheric pressures and temperatures. Water is the product of its vapour condensation—condensation is the process of such phase conversion.